Staging in Shakespeare's Theatres (Oxford Shakespeare Topics) - Hardcover

Gurr, Andrew; Ichikawa, Mariko

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019871159X ISBN 13: 9780198711599

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

By bringing together evidence from different sources--documentary, archaeological, and the play-texts themselves--Staging Shakespeare's Theatres reconstructs the ways in which the plays were originally staged in the theaters of Shakespeare's own time, and shows how the physical possibilities and limitations of these theaters affected both the writing and the performances. The book explains the conditions under which the early playwrights and players worked, their preparation of the plays for the stage, and their rehearsal practices. It looks at the quality of evidence supplied by the surviving play-texts, and the extant to which audiences of the time differed from modern audiences; and it gives vivid examples of how Elizabethan actors made use of gestures, costumes, props, and the theater's specific design features. Stage movement is analyzed through a careful study of how exits and entrances worked on such stages. The final chapter offers a thorough examination of Hamlet as a text for performance, excitingly returning the play to its original staging at the Globe.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrew Gurr is Professor of English at the University of Reading. Mariko Ichikawa is Associate Professor of English at the University of Tohoku, Japan.

Review:

`an excellent survey of the material conditions of the major London and London-area playhouses'
SEL 41,2 (Spring 2001)

`For a student readership the opening of chapter 1 is an excellent statement of the Elizabethan audience's ability to imagine, and of the importance of our attempting to understand that imaginative power from the words of the texts. ...Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is chapter
four, ...and chapter six. ... how humans may have entered, exited, and moved about the English Renaissance stage. This section of the book will be of interest not only to students and teachers, but to serious scholars of the drama, and probably should be compulsory reading for those people mounting
productions. ... This book is packed with useful information, is well written, with telling examples, and should be a worthy member of the series of which it is a part.'
William Proctor Williams, March 2001

`a host of ... fascinating questions are enlighteningly explored in Gurr and Ichikawa's authoritative and highly readable book.'
Rex Gibson, Around the Globe, Jan 01.

`an engrossing account of major features of Elizabethan playhouses, together with equally thought-provoking descriptions of how the playwrights worked, and rehearsal practices.'
Rex Gibson, Around the Globe, Jan 01.

`This fine book won't give you definitive answers, but it will provide the relevant evidence and the best possible conjectures. It's a necessary book for all Globe lovers.'
Rex Gibson, Around the Globe, Jan 01.

`this well-structured and easily accessible book is highly recommended to anyone interested in Shakespeare'
Gaby Frey, Variations

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 019871159X
• ISBN 13: 9780198711599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192